PARTNERSHIP URGED TO FIGHT DRUGS;
SEN. PAUL COVERDELL'S VISION OF A FIVENATION ALLIANCE IS GAINING BIPARTISAN
SUPPORT. by Ken Foskett; WASHINGTON BUREAU
Copyright (c) 1997, The Atlanta Constitution

An unusual coalition of liberal Democrats and conservative
Republicans is pushing a proposal by Sen. Paul Coverdell
(R Ga.) to create an international alliance in the war
on drugs. Under Coverdell's proposal, the United States
and its regional partners would coordinate military
strategy, set goals and negotiate outstanding disagreements
over drug enforcement jurisdiction.

"This is the time to strike on this," said Sen.
Christopher Dodd (D Conn.), who next to Coverdell is the
proposal's most vocal backer.

Democrats such as Dodd like the idea because they think
more regional cooperation would help avoid the annual
partisan battles over certification, when the
administration decides which countries have cooperated in
the drug war and are worthy of U.S. aid.

Many Democrats believe certification fights such as the
one Congress just picked with the administration over
Mexico do more harm than good, alienating the United
States' Latin American neighbors.

Conservative Republicans such as Coverdell argue that a
multilateral drug war strategy would be more effective in
cutting and interdicting supply. It also would give the
drug war higher visibility in the region.

"It allows the rest of the hemisphere to come to us as
partners in the battle rather than a situation that tends
to make everyone stand off," said Coverdell.

Coverdell's alliance would include the United States,
Mexico, Bolivia, Colombia and Peru. The institutional
framework still has not been worked out, but Coverdell
envisions an entity based in a neutral country such as
Panama or Guatemala and staffed by representatives from all
five nations.

The alliance might, among other things, help eliminate
barriers to international interdiction by, for example,
developing agreements to allow U.S. Coast Guard boats to
pursue suspected drug traffickers in the territorial waters
of neighboring countries.

The Senate resolution expressing concern over Mexico's
progress in fighting the drug war that was passed last
week calls on the Clinton administration to explore
formation of "a coordinated multilateral alliance."

The language, drafted by Coverdell, was the Senate's
first official recognition of the drug alliance concept and
represented a significant victory in Coverdell's twoyear
effort to win Senate backing.

Independent analysts offer guarded praise for
Coverdell's proposal, but they warn that most Latin
American countries are likely to regard it as simply
another attempt by the United States to impose its policies
on them.

"The United States will always feel that its drug
control agenda should be followed more strictly than
others," said Peter Sanchez, a political scientist at
Loyola University in Chicago.

"These countries in their heart of hearts do not see
this is a problem of supply. They see it as a problem of
demand," added Swarthmore College professor Kenneth Sharpe,
author of " Drug War Politics: The Price of Denial." "A
really multilateral policy might put the kinds of
conditions on the United States that the United States
couldn't meet."

Sharpe argues that any drug policy that focuses on
interdiction and enforcement without tackling demand is
doomed to fail. He notes that even if the United States
could cut the cocaine supply by onehalf, an impossible
goal, the street price of cocaine would increase only 3
percent to 4 percent.

But Coverdell argues that the current bilateral approach
to the drug war, in which the United States deals
independently with Mexico, Colombia and other
drugproducing countries, ignores the new laws of supply
and demand. The United States is now one of the largest
suppliers of drugs, producing perhaps as much as onehalf
of the marijuana consumed here and increasing amounts of
methamphetamine. Latin American countries such as Mexico
now also have big demand problems, as drugs invade urban
neighborhoods just as they have in the United States.

"Consumption is growing there and production is growing
here," Coverdell said.

For the moment, no one on Capitol Hill is arguing that
an international drug alliance would replace the
certification process. But some observers believe the two
would quickly collide.

"Certification and multilateralism are incompatible,"
says Robert Pastor, director of the Latin American program
at the Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta. "If you are
going to have a partnership to fight the war on drugs,
you cannot hit back and grade your other partners without
realizing that you will undermine your collaborative
efforts."